The school had adopted a practice called mindfulness, but stopped after some parents and community members raised concerns the technique was linked too closely to Eastern religions like Buddhism.

“There was no malice from anyone in the district to bring something in that was not appropriate,” Superintendent Brent May said in a recent interview. “As we kept digging and researching, we found the roots to it. We have to be careful as a public school that we don’t cross over church and state.”